When Russell Brand first burst onto the scene he was known for being a serial womaniser and his battles with addiction.
The Sun named him ‘Shagger of the Year’ three times in a row from 2006 to 2008 and he allegedly slept with more than 1,000 women. The comedian openly boasted about his promiscuous past, once claiming to have bedded nine women in one evening.
Following a stint in rehab, the sex and drug addict began to try to change the tide on his reputation.
In more recent years he has regenerated into a successful online influencer and wellness guru and has more than six million subscribers to his YouTube channel.
After years of drugs, partying, sex and rehab, Brand settled down and married his wife Laura Gallacher in 2017 before the pair welcomed two young daughters – Mabel and Penny – and are now expecting a third child.
The Sun named Russell Brand ‘Shagger of the Year’ three times in a row from 2006 to 2008 and the comedian openly boasted about being promiscuous during the early stages of his career
Brand is photographed in July 2010 wearing his underpants during filming scenes for the re-make of 1981 movie Arthur
Known for his interest in spirituality, just last month Brand advertised his next big wellness event – Community 2024 – aimed at helping personal awakening and social change.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, Brand himself said how he is ‘less mad now’.
‘I was a needy person,’ he said. ‘I mean, that condition abides, but I manage it better now, I think.’
In 2014, he posted a picture of himself holding up a t-shirt emblazoned with black bold capital letters ‘No More Page 3’ as he threw his weight behind the campaign.
He thanked his then girlfriend Jemima Khan for ‘the wake up call’ and declared ‘teenage sexist me is slain’.
Not all commentators were convinced by his newfound image, with Dr Brooke Magnanti – a research scientist and former prostitute – pointing the spotlight on his tweet declaring ‘love of a good woman’ had made him change his ways.
She wrote in The Telegraph: ‘What on earth does that mean? That all the other women – of which, by his own admission, there have been a good many, including ex-wife Katy Perry – were insufficiently good enough to convince Brand that sexism wasn’t on?’
Today, ex Rhian Sugden broke her silence about the 48-year-old supporting the campaign after Saturday’s bombshell Dispatches documentary.
Glamour model Rhian, 37, who insisted nothing untoward happened when they were together, did however claim Russell joined the No More Page 3 campaign in 2014 after failing to ‘s**g his way through’ its list of models.
Ex Rhian Sugden claimed Brand joined the No More Page 3 campaign in 2014 after failing to ‘s**g his way through’ its list of models
When the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, ex-Lothario Brand described it as a ‘real awakening’.
In an interview with The Sunday Times magazine in January 2019, he said he had no regrets about his past.
He praised the #MeToo movement, adding: ‘No [I don’t regret my past]. I just feel it [the movement] is a really positive change. It’s a sign of real awakening.’
And talking about his own shift in attitude towards sex and marriage, he added: ‘When I think “oh that person is attractive”, the next thought is “yes but if you ever did anything, you realise it would destroy your whole life”. There’s that voice in my head now.’
In 2012 he was on Newsnight to discuss how drug addicts are treated and got into a heated debate with Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, where the latter accused Brand of being ‘aggressive to me in the past’.
Hitchens questioned: ‘Why is a comedian being given a programme on the BBC to push a policy about drugs? Why is the debate on drugs so debased that this is the kind of thing we are reduced to?’
A year later, The New Statesman announced Brand was guest-editing a special issue on the theme of Revolution.
Brand appeared on Newsnight in 2012 where he clashed with Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens in a heated debate on how drug addicts are treated
He appeared as a panellist on Question Time in 2014 and again made the headlines for a heated row with Nigel Farage. He also had to apologise for being ‘sexist’ to Penny Mordaunt
The edition focussed on climate change, gay rights, transcendental meditation and dealing with drug abuse and included contributions from the likes of Gary Lineker, Noel Gallagher, and Alec Baldwin.
In 2014, the comic was on the Question Time panel alongside then UKIP leader Nigel Farage where he clashed with Brand over immigration and whether Britain is ‘overcrowded’.
The comic labelled Farage a ‘pound shop Enoch Powell’, while a member of audience called for him to stand for election to Parliament.
Brand was forced to apologise for ‘sexism’ after telling fellow panellist Penny Mordaunt, who was praising firefighters: ‘Pay their pensions then love.’
While only as recently as June, he appeared on Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO in a one hour and 40 minute interview titled: ‘Russell Brand FINALLY Opens Up: Escaping A Lifetime Of Anxiety, Addiction & Finding Love!’
In his opening gambit, the entrepreneur said: ‘Russell Brand is one of the most fascinating individuals I have ever spoken to. A former self-harming, heroin addict, self-confessed narcissist, bulimic that craved fame and attention.
‘And was so addicted to sex he slept with five women a day. That married Katy Perry three months after meeting her, and then divorced her with a text message.
‘Have you ever felt that that subtle feeling that the way you’re living isn’t quite right? That something somewhere is out of balance?
‘That you are not living your life as that human somewhere inside you should be living their life. The Russell Brand that sits before me can relate. And he’s found a new cure for that feeling.’
The interview has been viewed more than 2.5 million times and has had more than 7,000 comments.
